


Breathe (Like Its Easy)

by imjaebumism



Category: GOT7
Genre: Gen, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-12 00:12:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4457894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imjaebumism/pseuds/imjaebumism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The doctor continues, “It occurs to those inflicted with unrequited love.” Jackson’s face scrunches up in confusion, his eyes narrowing. He’s never heard those last few words in Korean before and Youngjae seems to catch his look.</p><p>“Liking someone that doesn’t like you back, hyung.”</p><p>Oh. Oh.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathe (Like Its Easy)

Apparently they’re called Gladioli. 

After hours on the internet looking up countless different pictures of flowers, the petals he sometimes cough up look the most like those belonging to this type of flower.

Except his are bright red around the edges and white in the center, kind of like blood seeping into paper. He doesn’t know what it means, why he’s been coughing up flower petals, but it started a week ago today. They’d been in the middle of filming a variety, somewhere in between jokes and laughter when Jaebum had leaned into his space, his arm wrapping around Jackson’s shoulders, tugging him close. He felt the first tickle at the back of his throat then. 

His first cough led to another, which brought on another and he had covered his mouth but they wouldn’t stop coming. The producer had called cut, wanting to wait for Jackson’s coughing fit to subside but Jackson had to excuse himself instead, ducking out from under Jaebum’s arm and locking himself into the bathroom down the hall from the set. 

It felt almost like he was going to throw up, just without the tell-tale sour taste at the back of his throat or the gag reflex. Whatever it was hurt, like it was alive and crawling up his neck, jagged edges scraping up his throat. 

When he pulled his hand back was when he actually felt the petals. He suddenly had a hand full of red and white, delicate and soft flowers in his hands, scrunched together but maintaining their effortless beauty. Jackson could do nothing but stare at them dumbfounded for however long it was until he heard a knock on the door and Jaebum’s voice on the other side. “Jackson, are you okay?” He had asked, voice tinged with worry. Jackson coughed again, two more petals tumbling out of his mouth and landing on the ground in front of him. 

He had felt his heart thundering in his chest as his mind ran a mile a minute, trying to figure out what was going on, but mostly how to hide it. “I’m okay.” He spoke, and he succeeded at sounding more sure than he felt as he picked up the fallen petals and ran over to the toilet. They were flushed without a second thought and when Jackson pulled open the door, he suppressed another cough at the look on Jaebum’s face, a cross between curious and concerned. He cleared his throat instead. 

“I’m fine.” Jackson said again, in case he hadn’t been as convincing as he thought he had been. Jaebum glanced at him up and then down and Jackson just shook his head, forcing a smile onto his lips and he tried his best not to brush up against Jaebum as he walked around him, heading back to the set, “come on, hyung. We have work to do.”

-

“It’s a very rare condition.” The doctor that Jackson had dragged Youngjae with to come see surveys the petals, turning them over and over on her open palm. She wears her glasses perched right at the end of her narrow nose and looks down into the lenses like Jackson’s grandma back in China even though she doesn’t look quite that old. Jackson had been afraid at first, when Youngjae found out and begged him to come to the doctors, forcing him onto every bus and nearly dragging him into the actual office. But he’d just sat at Jackson’s side the whole time listening with rapt attention and never judging, “Hanahaki disease, they call it. We haven’t seen a manifestation quite this severe in years, however.” She glances down her nose at Jackson as he coughs up a few more petals. 

It hadn’t taken him long to realize that the coughs and Im Jaebum were directly correlated. At first, he’d only feel an itch whenever Jaebum was actually around him, the coughs would occur when he’d have any direct contact with Jaebum, but now it was more irregular. A thought or memory would trigger the harshest of fits and it would almost seem as if Jackson had no control over them. The doctor continues, “It occurs to those inflicted with unrequited love.” Jackson’s face scrunches up in confusion, his eyes narrowing. He’s never heard those last few words in Korean before and Youngjae seems to catch his look.

“Liking someone that doesn’t like you back, hyung.”

Oh. _Oh._

“Yes. Exactly.” She puts the petal she was holding aside and rolls over to her desk on the chair she’s sitting on, typing on her computer. “There is a procedure that can be conducted to stop the petals. But there would be side-effects.”

“What would be the-,” Cough. A few more petals. “What would be the side effects?”

“The feelings you harbor for the person you’re in the one-sided love with would cease to exist. You would feel nothing towards them, ever again.” She clears her throat and fixes her gaze back on Jackson causing him to feel slightly unnerved, “we can’t explain what causes the loss of affection but it's a side-effect we always feel the need to share with our patients, should it have any bearing.”

Jackson nods, unsure about how he’s feeling about that yet, so he asks a follow up, “and that’s the only option?”

“Well the petals could also stop naturally,” She says, glancing away from Jackson and taking off her glasses. She looks younger without them on, “should your feelings be returned by said person.”

Jackson can’t quite get a hold on how that makes him feel either. 

-

The thing is, his body figured out he liked Jaebum before he was able to make up his mind about it himself. 

It had kind of always been at the back of his mind. He’d noticed Jaebum a lot more lately, thought about him more often than not, would find all sorts of weird excuses to be close to him. But he’d thought it had been innocent enough, thought that it just meant he wanted to be Jaebum’s friend or was a little more like a slight crush. 

The first was completely plausible, the second a little less manageable, but Jackson thought he’d be able to handle a tiny crush, that it’d be harmless and he’d get over it sooner or later.

But the flowers don’t come around for measly crushes that are able to be forgotten and surpassed. They mean that he’s in love with Jaebum that his feelings that may have started as a harmless, albeit closeted, affection, had long since expanded into something beyond himself, something his body has chosen to reject beyond plausible reasoning. Because not only do the flowers mean this is more than a crush, they also mean Jaebum doesn’t love him back.

Which feels terrible. 

After he got home from the check up, Youngjae tried to ask all of the questions he held back, making up for the ones he hadn't asked when he found the petals Jackson missed while trying to stuff them all under his pillow one night. Youngjae had walked into his bedroom at the wrong time, caught him off guard because he swore that everyone had left half an hour ago, and became the first to find out. 

“Who is it, hyung?” He asked, sitting cross legged on Jackson’s bed. Jackson shrugged, coughing into the surgical mask he insisted on leaving on now, as if it could do something to hold back the unpredictable onslaught of petals.

Jackson doesn’t know how to not be honest to Youngjae, though. The kid is all wide eyes and an innocent heart and Jackson finds it so difficult to keep things from him. So the truth rolls off his tongue effortlessly, muffled behind a thin wall of cotton and the smell of antiseptic, “Jaebum-hyung.”

He’s looking up at the white of his ceiling, mind blank but he doesn’t have to glance down to know what Youngjae’s face must look like, “really hyung? Of all the people to fall in love with, you choose Jaebum-hyung?”

He can't think of anything else to say because he's thrown the same words at his own heart so many times. Out of everybody he's ever interacted with, even the people he'd wished to love at some point, Jaebum was the one it chose? He asked because he doesn't understand how his own heart could be so cruel, defying his body for a love with no foreseeable future. He doesn't get it. 

“I know.” His voice is muffled by the mask that he reaches up to pull it off as a coughing fit starts up and countless petals fall out his mouth, soft against his lips, landing on his bed. He sits up, the coughs racking through his whole body until his throat is raw and his face is probably red. Youngjae panics, Jackson could hear it in his voice as he rushes over to the other side of the room and picks up the trashcan him and Mark keep in there, placing it under Jackson’s mouth so it catches the brunt of the spillage. 

As the coughing subsides, Jackson closes his eyes, his heart feeling heavy in his chest as his body attempts to expel the poisonous feelings from it, knowing that nothing good could come of them. 

Even with the trashcan overflowing with petals, his lap is full with even more and he leans forward, feeling hollow and empty as he grabs a handful then lets them fall through the spaces his fingers allow, landing gently on the bed, descent uninterrupted. 

-

Sometimes Jackson thinks about what it would be like not loving Jaebum. He wonders if he’d maybe been in love with Jaebum since he met him, and if he hadn’t been, then he wonders when it changed, and how he’d felt about him before. 

He wakes up in the morning and watches his leader go about their usual routines and thinks about how it would feel to not find his bed hair so endearing or notice how tired he looks even after he wakes up. Because there's no doubt they all work hard but the responsibilities of leader must weigh him down a ton and Jackson finds his heart tugging when he catches Jaebum stifling a yawn, or catches the heavy bags under his eyes. 

And Jackson has always tried so hard to make it a little bit easier on him. Woke up the kids before Jaebum woke up so that he could be saved for last. He’d even make his morning tea for him, the tea that was mostly just warm water and honey, just the way he knew Jaebum liked it. 

But that would never be enough to wipe that look off of Jaebum’s face, to steal the fatigue from his bones or make him feel happy when he always looks so focused and sad.

Jackson can’t really imagine what it would be like to not be in love with Jaebum because he has probably always been in love with him and he probably always will be.

-

It gets worse. 

Whenever Jaebum comes near him, he coughs. Whenever Jaebum touches him, he coughs some more. It gets harder to hide the onslaught of petals. He throws out bags of them daily, vomits them into the toilet more often than a few times a week. Even being in the same vicinity as Jaebum, seeing him from across the stage, watching him walk to the kitchen while he’s sitting on the couch. All of that causes his chest to feel heavy as his head grows light and his throat itches. More petals.

One time, after a particularly bad fit when Jaebum had reached out for his hand during an interview, he came out of the bathroom and Youngjae’s eyes widened at the sight of him. At first he had no idea why Youngjae looked so surprised until the younger member reached up and touched the corner of Jackson’s mouth. 

When he pulled back, his finger was red. 

Blood.

“You have to tell him, Jackson.”

Jackson doesn’t know what that's going to do, and he says as much as Youngjae follows him into his empty bedroom, going straight for the roll of toilet paper kept on the dresser he shares with Mark.

He holds it to his mouth as Youngjae continues, keeping his voice low so that nobody overhears but Jackson could hear the panicked lilt underlying his words, “its either you tell him, or you have the surgery, hyung. You have to decide. It’s gotten so much worse.”

“Youngjae.” Jackson sighs, pulling the napkin away and throwing it out. He doesn’t look at it, knowing already the amount of blood he’d see. “I can’t tell him.”

“Then have the surgery.” Youngjae pleads. He takes a step forward, peering at Jackson with his wide and worried eyes. The fear Jackson feels bubbling under the facade of calm and collected he keeps up is clearly translated on the planes of Youngjae’s face, but they’re not for the same reasons. 

Youngjae is scared of losing Jackson. Jackson is scared of losing Jaebum.

He’s the one that breaks their staring match, walking over to his bed and sinking down. He’s felt weaker lately, never feels up to doing anything but sleeping and dreaming about dark brown eyes and gentle smiles that help make those eyes disappear. He doesn’t know when it got this bad. “Jaebum-hyung,” Jackson starts, laying the words all out in front of him before they could get lost in his thoughts, “he doesn’t love me now. But, Youngjae, what if I have the surgery tomorrow and Jaebum-hyung falls in love with me the day after that?” A lot of thought had gone into this, thinking and hoping and wanting beyond reason. 

Jackson has already poured his whole heart into this, has already thought about what it would feel like not loving Jaebum. There’d be no petals, but he’d feel like a shell of his former self, unable to even remember caring about a person he’d once loved so much that his body constantly destroyed itself over him. “I’ll never feel this way again, Youngjae. Petals, some blood. It just seems like such a small price to pay.”

-

Its not that it gets harder to hide them, just that it becomes more time consuming, and if theres anything Jackson doesn’t have much of, its time. Time to run away before the petals fall out of his mouth, time for him to gather them all into a trash bag before someone walks in. 

But it works out, because four hands are so much more effective at shoveling piles of flowers into garbage bags than two are. And it should also be noted how good Youngjae and Jackson had gotten at hiding it, even as it got worse. 

There’d been a truce though, because this wasn’t only Jackson having to deal with this, losing his free time in red and white petals, Youngjae was being pulled into this too and that was anything but acceptable. So he had to tell, had to take a shot in the dark with a gun that might as well be pointed at his own head. 

He wouldn’t know until he pulled the trigger.

Jaebum spends hours on the roof at times, just sitting and thinking and usually no one bothers him because leaders need their space, as Jinyoung says, but today Jackson follows him up there.

It only recently occured to Jackson that he can’t remember the last time he’d had a full night's sleep or his last full meal. 

Youngjae looked at him with sad eyes one morning, “you’ve lost weight, hyung.”

And there was this one particularly scary fit in the middle of the night where he threw up gladiolus petals for hours, tears streaming down his face and his body collapsing in on itself as he curled up on the cool tiles of the bathroom. Luckily, Youngjae had been the one to find him surrounded by a pool of petals right before he passed out and everything grew dark. He dreamed about pale skin and dark hair and when he woke up, Youngjae made him promise he’d tell, expressive eyes glassy with tears.

So, he’s keeping his word even though he could feel his stomach folding in on itself.

Jaebum greets him with a wide smile and pats the empty space next to him, crossing his legs under him and waiting expectantly. There's something calm and soothing about the crisp night air, something that has the ability to soothe Jackson’s nerves enough to get him to take the seat and settle his heart with a few breaths so that it isn’t threatening to beat straight out of his chest. 

“Whats up Jackson?” Jaebum says, facing forward. He doesn’t even glance over at Jackson and he wonders if Jaebum could feel his eyes trained on the side of his head. 

“I might-” He begins but decides to start over, “have you ever hear of Hanahaki disease?”

Jaebum looks contemplative for a second before he nods his head twice, “It has to do with unrequited love right? And coughing flowers.”

Jackson swallows and looks away, “yeah.”

“It’s a myth isn’t it?” It’s a classic foot in mouth mistake. There’s no way that Jaebum could mean for those words to hurt as much as they do, Jaebum has no knowledge of this condition outside of internet stories and who could resist challenging their validity? 

“Probably.” Jackson fibs, tugging on the sleeves of his sweater, he has no idea when it got so cold, “It could be real, though.”

“I read somewhere that if you have it, it’s easy to get rid of. Just have the person you’re in love with fall for you too. Or have some kind of surgery.” Jackson doesn’t know how that could count as even remotely “easy” but he nods anyway. 

“Sure, sure.”

“So what about it?” Jaebum asks and Jackson wonders how he’s missed it. Anyone paying close enough attention could tell something's been off with Jackson except for Jaebum. Jackson could argue that it's because Jaebum is leader and his responsibilities spanned five people beyond Jackson himself and he shouldn’t feel hurt, he shouldn’t want all of Jaebum’s attention. But he does. 

Jackson just sighs, “nothing. I just read some stuff, found it interesting.” He smiles wryly, “you’re right, its probably a myth.”

“Jackson, what would you do? If you had it… would you tell?” Jaebum asks and Jackson balks because he still really doesn’t have an answer to that. 

“I don’t know.” Jackson relents. “It’s hard telling people how you feel about them.”

“That’s true.” Jaebum smiles and Jackson finds that he can’t look at him for too long when he smiles at him like that, “besides, there's more important things to worry about. Like getting your dance steps right in our music videos Wang Jackson.” 

The ability Jaebum has to shift the mood, change the subject with a few words and soft smiles, has always had Jackson struggling to catch up, going weak at the knees. It throws him off guard every time and Jackson wants to go back to their line of conversation they’d been having before he chickens out and doesn’t end up asking the question and getting the answer that could change his life. 

He feels it all falling and crashing when he smiles and runs a shaking hand through his hair, his body heaving on a sigh, “I could’ve sworn that's the leg we were taught to do it with. Are you sure you guys aren’t the ones that messed up?”

Jaebum laughs, “It’s six against one kid, even if we are the ones that were wrong, majority rules.”

“Says you.”

“Says democracy.” 

Silence encroaches after their chuckles die down and the night sky is filled with the sounds of honking cars and cicadas. Jackson is quiet for a really long time because he’s already chickened out, he doesn’t want to tell, doesn’t want to ruin this. He knows that if he tells theres a gigantic chance his feelings won’t be returned and he doesn’t want to lose this. The feeling of amicably sitting beside Jaebum, being able to call him his friend, he doesn’t want to ruin it with feelings and complications. But he has to know the answer to one question, “hypothetically. Would you tell? If you had the disease, would you tell the person you were in love with?”

Jaebum seems to contemplate the question for a little bit before biting his lip and sighing. He looks away but Jackson can’t stop watching him, committing his face to memory, committing this feeling to memory, “right now? I don’t think it’d be the right time for feelings and all that nonsense, so I honestly don’t think I’d tell. We’re just taking off, you know? Like I said, there’s better things to worry about.” He smiles wryly and never glances back at Jackson, “hypothetically of course.” 

Right. It's all hypothetical because Jaebum doesn’t know that Jackson is in love with him. That the ‘strong character’ that the flowers stand for, the ones his body rejects have everything to do with him and not just some random person Jackson’s never talked about. Of course Jaebum doesn’t think it's him, because he himself isn’t in love with Jackson. Thats what the flowers mean, thats why they’re killing Jackson because even though Jaebum doesn’t know Jackson’s feelings, he doesn’t return them in the same way and on some level Jackson’s always been aware of that but it kills him now that he’s thought it all out. 

“The surgery sounds like the best option for you then, huh.” Jackson says quietly, biting his lip. 

“I guess it does.” 

Jackson stays quiet. The only thing that interrupts their silence after a while is Jackson’s coughs, the petals silky smooth against his bare arms exposed by his short sleeve shirt. The wind is gentle and welcoming on his too hot face and it rustles some of the petals on his laps, carrying them off the edge of the roof and away before Jaebum could catch sight of them. Jackson watches them go.

-

Jackson doesn’t know what it was that kept him hoping that one day he’d wake up and the petals would just be gone. Jaebum would love him and he wouldn’t even have to hurt for it. They’d be easy, Jaebum’s hard not to fall for and Jackson’s always been easy to love, it’d be like waking up on a Sunday morning. Slow and steady. They could’ve been good together, him and Jaebum.

But Jaebum was right, there's no time for this. After they signed away on the dotted line, they promised their loyalty to the brand name, to the company, to each other that they would go through this together, work hard for their composite dreams. Jackson didn’t want to be the reason that the trust and companionship the seven of them had spent so long building, crumbled at their feet. So Jackson makes the only decision that will allow him to go on like this never happened.

“Its a simple operation. Won’t take more than an hour.” His doctor’s voice comes in and out as his hold tightens on Youngjae’s hand and he screws his eyes shut. He thinks about what it could’ve been like waking up next to Jaebum, being wanted by him, kissing him and he feels the coughs coming up. They hurt again. 

“We’re just going to insert the anesthetic and get on with it. It’ll be over soon Jackson.”

He hopes so.

-

It takes a day to recover from the surgery. Apparently, everything went well, despite the supposed severity of his condition and they were able to conduct the surgery without any complications. 

When he gets back to the dorm, it seems most everyone was told about what happened because they all crowd around the front door expectant. 

Jaebum is the first to come up to him, he places a hand on Jackson’s shoulder and instinctively, he seizes, waiting for the onslaught of petals, the pain of them coming up from the depths of his gut... except they never do. The pain never comes. The unsteady heart rate, the sweaty palms, they’re all gone and when Jaebum asks him if everything is okay, Jackson looks at him and waits to feel something, longing, want, pain, joy, love. He comes up empty. 

He chokes out an I’m fine, everything’s taken care of, and walks past him, past the rest of the members and their manager and walks into his room, closing it on their worried glances and baited breaths. Jackson hates the pitiful stares. 

He doesn’t even bother with the lights, just lays down in the dark and tries to remember how he used to feel like around Jaebum before. Of course he remembers how his body reacted, why it doesn’t do the same thing now, but he forgets how it used to feel, why the feeling was so addicting. It’s all been taken away from him.

**Author's Note:**

> Woah so I didn't curse once in this fic??
> 
> Comment or come over to talk or ask questions at imjaebumism.tumblr.com <3
> 
> Also fellow writers should totally check out got7writers.tumblr.com and apply~~ /shameless pr/
> 
> Thanks for reading


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